I am sick of this nonsense where I need to add a line in order to get any promotion. I have been a loyal customer for over 5 years and I am about to leave because I can literally no buy a new phone on any promotion without adding a line. It's a bs way to jack up current number of customers and manipulate active lines/user data. Why would I need two phones and another line. Why can't I just get one phone at half off like all of the other carriers that run promos.

All replies

I've been with Tmobile for many years. I was concerned when they switched to their "no-contract" policy because it meant that customers could no longer get free phones. I suppose that would have been ok if they had reduced our monthly bill so that adding on a 24 month "payment plan" for a new phone was the same net monthly amount, but it wasn't. Instead, it has increased my phone bill significantly. That was bad enough but now we don't get any breaks at all. No free or reduced phones, no incentives to upgrade out phones, no deals whatsoever. I currently have 4 phone lines and really wanted to use the buy one get one free to upgrade two of the phones. Nope. The deal was only valid if adding a new line. I understand that this is a great advertising ploy to attract new customers but it doesn't help current customers. With the outrageous cost of phones these days, it is near impossible for lower income families to upgrade their phones. I for one, cant afford to upgrade more than one phone at a time because of the cost. That means that I can't upgrade my phone for like 6-8 years (based on a 24 month payment plan per phone)! Tmobile needs to take care of their current customers. The Tmobile Tuesday freebees are nice but in the end, helping current customers stay current (without charging them top dollar) is more important if they want to retain them.

I took advantage of the Note 8 Bogo. I did have to add a Line. However, I canceled one of my existing voice lines, which allowed me to take advantage of keeping my older Simple Choice plan, Also many who took advantage of the BOGO's canceled the extra line they added once they received their rebate. Yes, it would be easier to simply be able to get a free phone without taking any of the steps I mentioned. The upside, many of us have plans that are worth their weight in gold for being long standing customers.

I'm sure there are loopholes that can be worked to get the free phones but I don't want to change my phone number(s) and it seems a bit dishonest and unethical. (No offense intended to those who used the loophole.) I would rather Tmobile just offer their current customers a reasonable discount on phones. (Which are way overpriced anyway in my opinion.) It would be the same savings (to the customer) to offer a 50% discount on a phone. I understand that a 50% discount would likely be a poor deal for Tmobile, since their bogo is intended to bring in a new revenue stream, but even offering a 25-35% off would be better than nothing. Maybe offer deeper discounts for those who haven't upgraded in the past 24 months. Plus, they could recoup some of the loss by requiring customers to turn in the old phone to get the discount. That would provide an opportunity to obtain phones that could be refurbished and resold.

Thank you for the information gramps28. I am aware of the Jump program and have participated in it in the past. As part of this program, you pay a monthly fee, which I believe is $9-$15/mo (which includes device protection). You cannot "jump" to a newer phone until you have paid off at least 50% of the phone (approx 12 months). At that point, you can trade in your phone and get a new phone. The old contract is closed out and a new 24 month program takes it's place, based on the cost of the new device. This is a great plan for those who like to upgrade on a yearly basis and don't mind having the additional costs each month.

One of the problems with this programs is if a person doesn't upgrade as soon as they can, they lose the benefit. For example, if a person didn't upgrade until the old one was paid off, there would be no benefit gained, because no credit would be given toward the purchase of a new phone. Credit is only applied toward the balance of the contract on the old phone. In a situation like this, the customers find that they have paid the extra monthlyamount for the jump program and received no benefit from it. Therefore, the jump program is not the same as getting a discounted price on the purchase of a new phone.

The other problem with the jump program is the increasing costs of the phones. You say you have a $60 plan. If you added Jump for $9-$15/phone and purchased two new phones in the $900 range, you'd be paying approximately $110 per month for the phones (not including screen protectors or protective cases) plus your base amount, so you bill would be around $170 plus tax. Consider someone like me, who has 4 phone lines. If I wanted to upgrade all four lines, that'd cost about $220/month to upgrade them all (not counting screen protectors and cases), plus the basic fee which is somewhere between $120-$160 depending on the plan. When you add on taxes and such, they'd be looking at about $400 per month. For low income customers, that's just not feasible! Sure, they could purchase cheaper phones. They could also take turns upgrading, but then the jump program would be worthless to them.

It is because of the high costs of phones that a bogo is so enticing to people. It makes it possible for people on a tight budget to actually upgrade their phones at a price they can afford. But unfortunately, I have not been aware of any bogo's available for current customers that doesn't require adding a line. The thing is, the bogos are basically a 24 month contract - if they cancel a line before the contract is paid off, the full amount comes due. I'd be happy to agree to that in order to take advantage of the bogo offer....if they offered it without requiring another line....I think 4 is enough.

As mentioned already, we do offer some promos that do not require adding a line in order to take advantage of a good deal on buying a phone. My apologies if anyone's missed out on any promos we've run, but the good news is deals like that will continue to run in the future. I encourage keeping eye on our Deals space here for the latest offers we're running.

Have been waiting on a bogo opportunity on any current phone that isn't LG lol for almost two years now. Wife been rocking a Note 4 for almost 4 years while mine died a few months back and since there were never any good sales I just went to Best Buy and bought an unlocked one. I have been enjoying Tmobile for years now but if new phones that actually are worth while buying are never available with some sort of discount for existing customers that are well passed their upgrade time then what is the point of sticking around?